Kobe's age really shows this season. He started the season shooting what? 90 percent from the free throw line and 54 percent from the field? That was without Nash. With Nash, he should be getting even better looks. We're seeing an exhausted Kobe, sadly, midway through the season. His shot selection has been bogus, and his defense is subpar.

At the end of the day, no one player, coach, GM, play style, ref, matchup, or opponent can be blamed for our struggles. It's a mix up of all of these and fixing only one won't be any sort of permanent fix. We need to get younger. We need players who hustle. We need a defensive minded (not Mike Brown, an actual effective) coach or assistant coach. We need to slow down the tempo and be a defensive powerhouse. We didn't get Dwight to be an offensive team, I can promise you that.

20 footers with a guy in your face make great highlight clips and take little energy to launch. Now a full court break and drive to the basket--that takes energy and your teamates might get a put back.

The guy is two years from retirement, playing 40 minutes plus, and being asked to be the defensive super star. If you've ever played basketball, it takes about 50% more energy to play defense, than offense. The guy is tired.

But thats no excuse--he knows he's tired--and he knows if he is tired, his shot will suffer. So perhaps Kobe should concentrate on getting others off the bench to be involved the play, rather than going it alone. Thats what leaders do--understand the limitations of the game and adapt and delegate.

I do appreciate that Kobe is a man, and man-upped putting the loss on him. But I disagree.

Defense remains the issue--Pao had no blocks and darn few rebounds, Nash looked lost, and Artest looked like he was half asleep out there. 5-10 defensive stops, and the Lakers would have won the game.

As long as we have Nash as PG and Pau is our starting PF we will struggle defensively, and Kobe will struggle to find the balance between. D'Antoni chose the easy way by giving Kobe the task to defend the opponent's best perimeter player. That's not the defensive scheme this team should adapt to eliminate the woes. This is not about concentration or other things that we can give as excuses. We have a serious problem. We simply don't have the personnel to play 2-way basketball. Only 2.5 guys can do it in starting lineup. Kobe, Dwight and Artest half assedly. If you look at top teams, they can do it or find a way to it in a game effectively. Whole Princeton, 7 seconds or less etc. arguments did nothing but hide the real problem we had: Defense. You see why Clark and Hill get appreciated by the fans. They try to play in both ends of the floor with giving everything they got. We need guys like them in 1 and 4 positions. Not Nash or Pau.

Glad he's taking responsibility, but some of you guys need to get off his nuts about him needing to take shots for us to be in games. It's the opposite - We need better quality, more efficient shots - Nash needs to make more decisions, the bigs need to be fed about 3 times as much as they are currently, and Kobe needs to take good shots in the flow of the offense.

Here are some recent bad shooting games from Harden and yet this mofo gets the respect and calls. Look at the boatload of free throw attempts. For the year Harden shoots 43% from the field, well below Kobe territory and yet he gets 10 free throw attempts a game